Hope Springs Eternal

Copyright 2003, all rights reserved.



Yeah. Bloody hell.

Blanston has blown into town with the unusual problem of having lost his Zoloft prescription somewhere along the new Lollapalooza tour, he figures at least a month ago, and, true to the warnings I just reviewed in my trusty hardcover copy of the Physician's Desk Reference, he's plunged into a serotonin-deprivation funk that was far worse than the original depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder that necessitated the drug in the first place.

So last night, as he grew increasingly nasty to us, the cats, and the dog (not to mention a continual stream of neighbors (being friendly, is all) and some female guests (a few UO students swooning for that Dutch prick’s accent and facility with machinery and electronics) here in the hills of Oregon, swilling Irish coffee and sucking down, in my estimation, far too much asthma inhalant, Jens and I beat him silly, fists wrapped in paint-stained rags (lots of pre Burning Man painting going on this week) and left him moaning on the hardwood floor in the dining room, which has been stripped of finish and sanded, but not yet wiped clean. In the last few hours he's gathered quite a bit of red dust, moist as he was.

Rifling through his pockets, I found, in addition to the $800 he's owed me since last years' Burning Man and a fifth of the newly legalized absinthe, a disk which contained an unfinished bit, which apparently he meant for me to distribute. Like last year.

[BTW, if anyone wants his ticket, (Burning Man 2003--Beyond Belief) let me know, because Blanston simply isn't going this year. The poor bastard may not make it through the night. It goes for $200, a steal now that they're getting $250- $300 at the gate]

So I'm plowing through that right now and hopefully will have it out shortly after the Man burns 10 days hence. Watch your inboxes. I hope it slips past your prudish packet sniffers--

As for Blanston, I just checked on him. He twitches; he sweats; he shrieks; he utters unbelievably vile curses that'd make Linda Blair blush. I may just duct tape his face and get it over with, but then I'd have to explain it, to people in charge, and we don't want any government agency snooping about these days, do we? for any reason, esp. since they now require no effing reason at all--

The Burn promises much this year, because Ashcroft and the rest of the Thought Police and Hitler Youth are running roughshod over ways of life that the moneyed freaks in the western states hold dear. Nothing fuels orgies of licentious excess more than the disapproving stare of hopeless squares and the plaintive, self-righteous (and ultimately envy driven) rhetoric of dangerous demagogues, envious because it is not they who are receiving gratuitous, I-love-you-as-a-beautiful-person skull from a shaved nymphet under a new moon in the Nevada desert, or skydiving on nitrous, or adjusting the mix on their handmade flamethrower.

And they want to be, deep in their sour, milkfat hearts.

And I thank them, because now everyone will be that much more determined to push the envelope, causing much Fundamentalist bile to rise, p'raps enough to choke them--

Move over, right wingers. The Left is coming for ya, crazed on dope and sex, wielding crossbows and witchcraft, and sharpening ceremonial knives for the letting of Bush sap,
for beheading straw men like Howard Dean and Ahnuld, cooking the poisonous brews with which we will induce one massive, mind-wrenching psychic rewiring which will render the survivors incapable of a malicious thought. Those who don't survive, well, they'll compost well. And we'll grow flowers from your bones, Bush et al. Flowers from your bones. Though I may make a pipe out of a cranium or two--

Talk to y'all soon. Should you happen to make it to Burning Man on the spur of the moment, you can find us at 3:00 between the outer and next-to-outer ring. Street names are Absurd between Theory and Vision. That will only make sense if you go.